HanEmpire: Ibrahim’s still able to draw on supplies from interior Syria and Palestine, although that’s getting pounded, plus still some via desert caravan by the new long-route. So he’s not in “collapse imminent” stage but he is in “slow wasting away” stage. If he tried to march his whole army out at once along that caravan route, he’d collapse his army in the process; oases aren’t enough to supply 80,000 men plus the cavalry and draft animals. He could slowly send portions back to Mesopotamia in batches, and sending away horses with their high fodder requirements would significantly reduce his logistical demands.
But at the same time, that would weaken his army and make him even more dependent on being on the tactical defensive in battle to make up for it, which would make it even harder for him to solve the fix he is in, never mind the issues with having weaker cavalry and less draft animals.
Theodoros could force a battle just by starting south from Arra and working his way down the Damascus road. He’d have more fortresses to reduce (Homs, Hama) but at some point Ibrahim would have to fight as his resource pool shrinks before his army goes from its current ‘slow death’ to ‘fast death’. That’s Theodoros’ inclination, but Demetrios is holding back because the Emperor is hoping he can pressure out Ibrahim without more loss of Roman blood.
(I know I didn’t give a time frame, but the answer would vary a lot depending on Ibrahim’s actions over the winter of 1633/34, for the reasons I’ve outlined above. Two thousand less Ottoman war horses to feed, by themselves, would make a big difference logistically, but with a corresponding decrease in the Ottoman army’s battle capabilities in Syria.)
The Army of Georgia most likely would be sent to reinforce Amirales; that would give him the numbers he needs to successfully take a crack at Mosul.
No to Ottoman printing presses. The OTL restrictions against Muslims using printing presses are active ITTL, although it’s possible that Christian/Jewish populations in the Ottoman Empire have presses of their own.
TheCataphract: The good thing is that now Demetrios has all winter to get to the bottom of what’s going on Georgia. Nobody wants to fight a big war in the Caucasus in the winter, especially with their tech level. But just the 30,000 by themselves makes a big difference. That would double Amirales’ field strength (he has a lot of men tied up garrisoning all those cities he’s taken in northern Mesopotamia), for example.
JSC: I wouldn’t say that Ibrahim neglected his supplies in Mesopotamia. Arbil’s army was meant to be reinforcements to protect his supply lines before Philanthropenos destroyed it. But yeah, he’s in a pretty big fix.
There are going to be a couple of reasons why he’s the Forgotten Emperor, but one of the main ones is going to be because of the act that follows. Philip is forgotten because of Alexander, Henry VII because of Henry VIII etc.
Ethiopia and Rhomania may regret it, but their thinking is to have a friendly Muslim state sit on the Hedjaz and hopefully keep it out of the Ottoman orbit.
I agree with your analysis on Romans and taking/holding Mesopotamia. The northern reaches down to and including Mosul is more feasible. Less Muslims to expel and less land to resettle, and with Mosul turned into an Aleppo-level fortress Roman Syria is very secure.
ImperatorAlexander: Theodoros IV is well-known and respected by historians and economists, but in popular view he is vastly overshadowed by his father (Demetrios Megas) and especially his son. He’s mainly remembered in relation to those two, rather on his own merits. Which is unfair, but when you’re followed by the Shatterer of Armies, it’s tough to be remembered.
Cryostorm: Demetrios is going to get the Philip/Theodoros IV treatment by history, although Demetrios III won’t get it as bad as Theodoros IV just because a lot more documents from his reign will survive and be accessible to historians.
One idea with Mesopotamia could be to turn it into a Cyprus-style arrangement between the Romans and Persians. IOTL the Byzantines and the Caliphate agreed that Cyprus would be demilitarized and its tax revenues evenly split between the two states.
The one spot that’s looking good for Muslims is for those currently living within the Despotate of Egypt. The “remainers” are very strongly anti-Idwait, so they’re providing good service to the Copts in fighting them.
Babyrage: Ibrahim was 29 at Nineveh (his first appearance) so now he’s forty. So he could have adult children, depending on how early he started. Don’t forget, the Romans still have Iskandar the Younger, Ibrahim’s brother and another son of Iskandar. The first effort to use him fell flat, but that was at the beginning of the war.
Oh, the Sideros family is going to be interesting all right…
Sceonn: Persian culture held up pretty well even after the Islamic conquests. There’s some Hellenization, such as the name Iskandar and Prince Osman and Andreas III made a reference to Alexander when they met at Nineveh. But still Persia would be really resistant to Romanization (widespread difficult terrain, old and highly developed culture, and a lot of Persians).
Lascaris: I’m not sure when the war is going to end (the plan has changed drastically from when I first envisioned this), but this first phase of the war will end in 1634.
I agree, the Triunes have a LOT of potential. Northern France alone has a comparable population to the entire Imperial heartland (16 million for France vs 18 million for the pre-war Imperial heartland). In terms of finance/banking innovations they’re comparable to the Romans, and they have a lot of natural resources.
I can’t comment about poetry or music in the Empire ITTL. I don’t know anything about it IOTL.
InMediasRes: That is a typo. Grrr…
Did a little Wikipedia research, and apparently graphite pencils were a thing as far back as Tudor times; I thought they appeared much latter. So this is a graphite pencil, imported from the Triple Monarchy (the graphite deposit is in England). I’ll make the changes.
Emperor Joe and Aristomenes: Thank you for the suggestions. I’m going to go with Pirokolos. It sounds cool while simultaneously raising awkward questions.
Curtain Jerker: Hundreds of thousands…not a chance, even if one was squeezing them in like an Atlantic slave trader. Upper level for moving men I’d put at 40-50,000. Demetrios III thought he could sealift 45,000 men to Arles if they joined the war, but that would’ve required the combined efforts of the Romans, Arletians, Sicilians, Egyptians, and Hospitaliers, and likely would’ve required renting some of those big Spanish galleons for a season.
I think Henri II, if for nothing else, deserves to be called “the Spider” just for helping to make this situation happen.
I know practically nothing about OTL musical history so I am completely unqualified to do anything with it ITTL, so I can’t answer that question. I do think I made an offhand reference to opera showing up in one of the recent cultural updates though.
Viciosdiego: There is resentment amongst the Mesopotamian Turks against Ibrahim and annoyance with the Persian element of the Ottoman state, but at the same time they hate the Romans.
Khaine: I like the idea of having the Ottomans around as a rival to the Romans. But a general could do like the eastern Komnenoi, have the guy taking over be named Osman and marry the daughter of the previous Shah. So the state is still ‘ottoman’ even though the male-line Ottoman dynasty died out 80 years ago.
Soverihn: Don’t worry, there will be ups and downs but an Ottoman state will stick around to the present day. I like the idea of the Ottomans being the big eastern rival to the Romans too much. Sure, I could have another big eastern power be that instead, but it’s not as fun.
Wolttaire: The concern is sending the Syrian Muslims to the Ottoman Empire would just be giving Ibrahim free subjects, which he’d love. It’d be like IOTL when the Spanish expelled the Jews and they went to the Ottomans, much to the delight of Mehmet II. His empire was strengthened with new taxpayers and workers while simultaneously an ally was weakened. Plus the now ex-Syrians would now be a very loud voice in Ottoman society urging western action on the Shahs, which is not in Rhomania’s interests.
On a moral level, it is repugnant, but enslaving them and shipping them far away to die out is practical from an imperialist viewpoint.
And dumping them in Western Europe would not go over well. The Latins would not appreciate it. Plus what if they ended up spilling over into Arles or Spain?
Evilprodigy: It is horrific, but then history is horrific. And no empire is going to be nice with a population that’s revolted 4 times in less than a century.
Floppy_seal99: At this stage, most likely not. There’s too much hatred on both sides. It’s possible some of the Syrian/Palestine Sunnis might be integrated by following the ‘remainer’ method (which wasn’t planned). Basically, kill/expel the richer Sunnis and give their land to the landless Sunni peasants, who will ideally be grateful and resist any attempted return by the former owners. It worked well in Egypt, but now…giving a guy forty acres and a mule after literally enslaving his whole family just isn’t going to cut it. So the Romans would far more likely give said forty acres and a mule to some discharged soldier or as a ‘thank you for your service’ to a member of the loyalists in the region.
The loyalist populations in the interior that lasted long enough all got evacuated for their own safety to the coast, so there’s still a good number of them. They’ll definitely be getting expanded holdings on their return.
I reserve the right to change my mind but I am thinking modern TTL India will be divided into 4-6 states (Indus valley, Upper Ganges, Lower Ganges, Vijayanagar-South India, and perhaps an Orissa and/or Deccan). One or two will be at least somewhere in the great-power club.
Donald Reaver: A cold war between King’s Harbor and Constantinople could be quite interesting. Lots of potential for intrigue, espionage, and proxy wars, such as a Triune-backed Bavaria vs a Roman-backed Hungary over Austria.
Vasilas: No need to fear; that’s not going to happen. Although I like that you think I’m devious enough that I’d do that…
Regarding Demetrios III’s reforms, a lot of what he’s implementing was schemed up during Andreas III’s reign. Remember how Odysseus said Andreas’ plan was a few years to survey the Empire and then a few years to reform? Andreas III died at the near-end of the survey period (he spent most of his reign touring the Empire). So Odysseus would do his best to implement them, because he knows they were his ‘brother’s’ wishes.
Andreas III was deliberately written as a red herring. I developed him as a character because I wanted to make his premature death more meaningful. Demetrios III and Odysseus though aren’t meant to be red herrings.
JohnSmith: Responding to your comment on the ToT, from a story-telling POV that makes perfect sense. But how often do people learn from history? There is a duality in this TL. On the one hand, it is telling a story (and in certain sections, such as with young Andreas I, it is very much telling a story). Yet on the other, the conceit is that this is a history of an alternate world, and so different rules apply.
HanEmpire covered why the Triunes haven’t had any civil wars lately. The throne has been passing from father to adult son for a while, and while varying in quality none have been bad.
That said I am scheming for a major one down the road (1670s?), although the seeds for that will be planted before the end of this decade.
RogueTraderEnthusiast: It’d be very interesting (in the Chinese sense) if/when the volcano erupts. A Roman invasion could be an excellent way to rip out some good concessions from Constantinople. Yet on the other hand, it might produce a ‘rally around the flag’ for the Imperial princes against the foreign heretics invading. There’s a precedent in the Hungarian War of the early 1500s. That’s a factor to consider.
Wittelsbachs are in an interesting place. They have several different ‘hats’, such as being Holy Roman Emperors and also Dukes of Bavaria. So it’d be feasible that they survive but get rolled back to their pre-imperial ancestral lands, aka being merely Dukes of Bavaria and nothing else.
Archangel: I admit for a lot of those I haven’t given any thought. But the Maronites, Druzes, Alawites, and Ismailis have all been listed as minorities given privileged status in exchange for providing militia troops during the Great Uprising/Eternal War.
Vince: Yeah, the only really big boy in the HRE besides the Wittelsbachs themselves are the Premyslids. There are a lot of other Imperial princes, but individually they’re small fry in comparison to those two. It’s possible though some prominent family with lots of connections amongst the princes, such as the Guelph family which was big news back in the late 1500s, might be able to rally a bloc of supporters behind them. But the fact that most of the Imperial princes have a good chunk of their active strength on the Danube means that they can’t cause much trouble, even if they wanted, at home.
TheWanderingReader: It would be nice if the Triunes did get a comeuppance; they’re inspired by the OTL British Empire, about which the more I learn the more I dislike. A lot of their arrogance is taken from that source IOTL (attacking a fleet in harbor without a declaration of war, English pirates attacking neutrals with which their own king is negotiating because ‘who cares, they’re all foreigners’, ‘Jesus is English’).
Stark: The Triunes are a bigger threat to ‘Rhomania in the East’, but realistically a state centered on the English Channel is not going to a serious threat to a state centered on the Aegean (the Imperial heartland). Munich is much closer to Constantinople than King’s Harbor. The ideal state of affairs for Constantinople would be a closely matched Triunes and HRE that beat each other silly over who controls the Rhine and leave the Romans free to poke around elsewhere.
It would be nice to set up something like the mid-1700s balance of power structure with multiple great powers and shifting alliances. Right now we just have the big three in Europe (Rhomania, Triple Monarchy, HRE).
Boa: Rhomania is well placed for soft-power vassalage. Scythia and Vlachia are economic/cultural satellites of the Empire. Although proposing free trade makes Romans see red; it makes them think of the customs exemptions granted to the Italians in the 1100s and look how that turned out for the Romans then.
Plus anyone proposing abolishing external customs duties will be murdered by the ghost of Theodoros IV.
But while the fleet is bombarding Qeshm/Hormuz, the coastal defenses are shooting back and the rule of thumb is one shore gun is worth three ship guns, because the shore guns are firing from a stable platform. Plus the shore guns have an elevation advantage and can heat their shot in ovens. So even if the Romans could beat down the forts, they’d get battered in the process, at which point the fresh Ottoman-Triune fleet sails out of harbor to engage.
Batman16: Maria of Agra is currently married to Kaisar Odysseus with one son by him (Herakleios). She has two illegitimate children by Andreas III and they’re being raised and watched in Constantinople or nearby. They’re both still really young. I do want them to be important later on but right now there are enough balls in the air already so I’m keeping them off-camera.
Surveying done (A3), Reforms (almost) done (D3), now conquest time (O1)!